MakeDamnSure
by littlechivalry
Summary: The War is over, but there is one more thing Harry must do before he can find peace. No pairings, slash or het. Post-DH. Not a songfic, I just liked the title.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters or this world. I just had an idea and I wanted to get it down. If this sucks blame the fact that I am very, very sleepy.

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**MakeDamnSure**

It was a quiet corner of a little-known cemetery, well-isolated because it was a bit too close to a new highway than most people cared for, but somehow Harry felt it was just right.

There was no ceremony. There were no mourners to say any words of regret or sorrow over the simple grave. No one was even supposed to know what time the body would be buried, but Harry had connections, and he called in a few favors.

When he'd arrived the gravedigger, Horace, was marking off a rough rectangle in the sod, and as the morning moved forward, that rectangle became a hole, rough but even, approximately six feet deep. The plain pine box had been resting in the deep shadows of a nearby willow tree. There would be no magic around the body, just to be safe.

Once the hole was ready Horace threw thick canvas straps over the hold and shifted the coffin over using a small, flat cart. Harry had drifted into his thoughts for the long hours where the only noise was an old shovel picking through damp earth and the white-noise rushing river of traffic only a few yards away, but when he saw the coffin moving he jumped to his feet.

"Oi! Wait."

Horace looked up at him, seeming surprised. After their initial brief introductions neither man had spoken and Harry imagined the gravedigger was used to working alone.

"Don't bury him-- Not yet."

Horace raised an eye brow at Harry, reminding him of Snape and Malfoy and any number of their admiring imitators back at Hogwarts, but said nothing, dropping the rope he'd been using to move the coffin and moving a few feet away.

Harry walked closer to the coffin, feeling the light hairs at the back of his neck rise up. The last time he'd seen this man, this monster, both of them had been only minutes of death, and now one of them was dead and the other lived.

It didn't feel real, and that was the problem. The battle, the victory, celebrations and plans for rebuilding and Harry had been dragged across half of London, Wizarding and Muggle, to meet people and shake hands. But it didn't feel real.

This moment, standing in the cool gloom of an English morning, staring down at an open grave and an occupied coffin, it felt real, true.

Moving closer still, Harry reached out one trembling hand and set it on the wooden surface. He held his breath for a moment, then released it in a relieved snort when nothing happened. It didn't hurt, didn't burn, no vengeance-maddened ghost rose up to confront him.

Harry wanted to laugh, he felt the pressure bubbling up in his chest but he swallowed it back down. He wasn't done yet.

The lid was nailed down. He should have expected that, but he wasn't prepared. Strict anti-magic wards had been placed around the cemetery, to prevent anyone from attempting a last minute act of vengeance or resurrection, but Harry knew the way around them and with a few small gestures and a whispered word the nails were loosened and he could lift the lid.

He only raised it a few inches, just enough to let in a beam of weak grey sunlight to illuminate the interior.

And there he was.

The last time Harry had seen Voldemort, he was a monster, he was a killer, he was a small battered child weeping fiercely in some space between life and death.

And now he was dead.

The body had been wrapped in a length of white silk, at the insistence of a few of the more soft-hearted members of the Order and Harry was thankful for it now. Seeing the man that had caused so much death and destruction go into the darkness dressed in the robes of a Death Eater would have been too strange, to painful, too expectant.

The white fabric made the man look younger, and smaller. By the time of his death most of the snake-like traits that he had brought back to life with him had faded into his original appearance and now he looked like nothing more threatening than a troubled sleeping man.

Using one hand to hold up the lid, Harry reached into the coffin. It felt warm and that was unsettling, but Harry told himself it was the heat of decomposition and it meant nothing. Still he was more tentative as he moved closer to Voldemort's face.

He waved his fingers under the man's nose and over his mouth, but he didn't feel anything. Reaching closer he pressed only the tips of his fingers against Voldemort's neck, but there was no pulse. The skin was cool and clammy without the give of living flesh. It felt like clay under his hand and he was satisfied.

"What are you doing there?"

Harry pulled his hand back and lowered the lid firmly, securing the nails again.

Stepping back from the coffin he gestured for Horace to go on with his job. The man picked up the ropes again after giving Harry a confused look.

The coffin was slowly lowered into the ground and then the gravedigger began to undo his earlier work, returning the earth to it's original location one spade-full at a time.

Harry stood there, watching the brown clots of dirt swing though the air, then listening to them land on the wooden box. After a few minutes the sound was softer and Harry couldn't heard the hollow sound of the coffin anymore.

The morning shifted into early afternoon and finally the job was done, the last few strips of sod laid in place. Some dirt was scattered around the gravesite, but the rectangle looked almost as it had at dawn, when the burial started. The gravedigger looked from the grave to Harry and back again.

"Should we say some words?"

Harry shook his head and the other man hefted his muddy shovel over his shoulder and walked away, leaving Harry alone with the grave.

The stone was simple, a few dates and a name.

Silently, Harry stood over the grave for few moments before walking away, out of the cemetery and into a world without Voldemort.

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**Note: **So, yeah. That was different. I got the idea while I was watching CSI and they mentioned that some murderers have been caught at the funeral of their victims. That took my head into why they would do that and then I went into the Poe story of the Tell Tale Heart and thought maybe they went to their victim's funerals to make sure they were dead.

I hope you enjoyed it. Or, since it wasn't really designed for enjoyment, I hope you found it interesting.

Review, and tell me what you think.


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